Onomatopoeia:
Words that sound like their meanings. In Hear the steady tick of the old hall clock, the
word tick sounds like the action of the clock, If assonance or alliteration can be onomatopoeic, as the
sound ‘ck’ is repeated in tick and clock, so much the better. At least sounds should suit the tone – heavy
sounds for weightiness, light for the delicate. Tick is a light word, but transpose the light T to its
heavier counterpart, D; and transpose the light CK to its heavier counterpart G, and tick becomes the
much more solid and down to earth dig.
Example: boom, buzz, crackle, gurgle, hiss, pop, sizzle, snap, swoosh, whir, zip
Hyperbole:
An outrageous exaggeration used for effect.
Example: He weighs a ton
Irony:
A contradictory statement or situation to reveal a reality different from what appears to be true.
Example:Wow, thanks for expensive gift...let’s see: did it come with a Fun Meal or the Burger King
equivalent?
Metaphor:
A direct comparison between two unlike things, stating that one is the other or does the action
of the other.
Example: He’s a zero. Example: Her fingers danced across the keyboard.
Personification:
Attributing human characteristics to an inanimate object, animal, or abstract idea.
Example: The days crept by slowly, sorrowfully.
Simile:
A direct comparison of two unlike things using “like” or “as.”
Example: He’s as dumb as an ox.
Example: Her eyes are like comets
Stanza:
A division of a poem created by arranging the lines into a unit, often repeated in the same pattern of
meter and rhyme throughout the poem; a unit of poetic lines (a “paragraph” within the poem). The
stanzas within a poem are separated by blank lines.
Stanzas in modern poetry, such as free verse, often do not have lines that are all of the same length and
meter, nor even the same number of lines in each stanza. Stanzas created by such irregular line groupings are often dictated by meaning, as in paragraphs of prose.
Imagery:
The use of vivid language to generate ideas and/or evoke mental images, not only of the visual
sense, but of sensation and emotion as well. While most commonly used in reference to figurative
language, imagery can apply to any component of a poem that evoke sensory experience and emotional
response, and also applies to the concrete things so brought to mind.
Examples:
• Sight: Smoke mysteriously puffed out from the clown’s ears.
• Sound: Tom placed his ear tightly against the wall; he could hear a faint but distinct thump
thump thump.
• Touch: The burlap wall covering scraped against the little boy’s cheek.
• Taste: A salty tear ran across onto her lips.
• Smell: Cinnamon! That’s what wafted into his nostrils
Reverse poetry
Reverse poetry is a poem that can be read forwards one way and have a meaning, but also be read backwards and have another different meaning. A type of ‘reverse’ writing is called a palindrome. Palindrome comes from the Greek words "palin" (again or back) and "dramein" (to run). So if you read that backwards, it translates loosely into "to run back." The palindrome simply reads the same forwards and backwards, usually with a central focal point from where it begins to read backwards.
Quatrains
a stanza of four lines, especially one having alternate rhymes